SACRAMENTO – The five members of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors will vote on a pay raise Tuesday, but many people in the community have concerns.
“No, they definitely don’t need it,” said Sacramento resident Ionia Burton.
“I’m actually shocked,” said Alicia Kelley, another Sacramento resident.
The county hired a consultant to conduct a salary survey and found that Sacramento supervisors are paid significantly less than their peers in line with an average of eleven California counties. But the counties they looked at included high-cost-of-living areas like San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa. You can see the numbers for these counties in this report.
It did not include Placer, El Dorado or Yolo counties, which are adjacent to Sacramento.
“It makes sense to compare the cost of living in Sacramento County to a comparable county with a similar cost of living,” said Bob Erlenbusch of the Regional Coalition for the Homeless. “We’re not down here, and here’s the Bay Area”
Sacramento board members make a base salary of just over $123,000, according to the report. The recommendation is to give them a 20% raise.
“I think they really need to reconsider,” Kelley said.
People think the money could be better spent.
“Our youth is an important thing because it becomes an issue,” Burton said. “I think that’s where those funds should go.”
“I don’t think they deserve a 20 percent raise,” Erlenbusch said.
Erlenbusch said elected officials should not be able to vote on giving themselves a raise and would prefer to have their salaries set by an independent commission, which is what the Sacramento City Council does.
“It appears to be a conflict of interest,” he said.
Others think any raise should be based on their performance.
“I think they really need to re-examine what’s going on in the community, whether they’ve really done anything better with housing costs, with food costs, with the homeless crisis. The three strikes, no Kelley said.
We reached out to the supervisors on Monday but were unable to get a comment.
If approved, the new increases will cost an additional $173,000 a year and take effect in June.
Marlee Ginter
